Thanks for all your good wishes. Did come home Friday night, and Vera, no problem in taking it slow. The spine is talking to me constantly making sure I move slowly and do nothing stupid, Surgery was a full success and the only pain now is post op. The gardens are doing well, and mother nature is cooperating quite well with the watering for me. So far no nightmares about hubby, the engineer, doing the watering for me. That was a sight for sore eyes 2 years ago when he had to take care of the gardens for me. Should be able to get out in the gardens for some pics in about 2 weeks, by then so much more will be blooming too. Fran

oops, never noticed that the pic for the cosmos psyche didn't go through correctly. sorry about that but here is the cosmos psyche Northerner, I surprised that your double click are only about 18 inches tall. It's supposed to grow to 4 feet. I had some last year and they did get that tall. I wasn't impressed with them so traded the seeds from that last fall and didn't grow them this year. Finally figured out what the orange and yellow cosmos is. It's cosmos diablo and I forgot that I had WS those seeds this year. Just have no idea what the orange ones are and the red one. I didnt' have those last year and only sowed seeds that I saved of gazebo lavender sonata fushia psyche white candystripe picotee diablo gloria sonata lavender daydream seashells white seashells pink pied piper versailles red sonata white so where it came from, the red is beyond me. I have no idea what that little white and purple petunia is either. I only know that the seeds came from a very dark purple petunia and or a very pale pink petunia that my neighbor purchased just before a local nursery closed for the month of August. She couldn't say no to the price and she planted them all in one pot. So the seeds where a mix. I have a string around the flower so that I can save seeds from it and not mix them up with the other seeds. Highaltransplanter, my plants are huge, but the toms are still small. Last year some of my cherokee purple did crack on the top but they still tasted wonderful, wouldn't be without them. The extremes in weather temps and water can cause toms to crack, but to me that is part of growing your won tomatoes in the garden and enjoying them. Tiny tim has a sweet but a bit tart flavor to it, and I didn't find the toms that small when ripe, about the size of a sweet 100. My 25 year old daughter likes them better than the sweet 100. I never heard of the mini bush yellow cherry and couldn't find much about it when i did a search. sounds interesting though and one I would like to try as well. I should have plenty of saved seeds from the tiny tim and my other toms for trades in the fall. Angie, thanks for the complement, not sure I would say I am an awesome gardener though. Some of my plants are about as sick looking as you can get and not sure why. Some has to do with the craziest weather I have seen in my life. At the moment the news and weather people are telling me that more rain has fallen in the month of July where I live than has fallen since the 1920's. Gee, didn't need to make me feel worse about the weather and all the rain than I already do. And the severe thunderstorms that have moved through on almost a daily basis for almost 2 weeks has been unreal. But that's the life of a gardener. Some years are better than others and it's either feast or famine when it comes to good weather. A pic of one of the storms that went through about 2 weeks ago, taken from the back door. No, I don't live in the tropics or a tropical rain forest. I live in a suburb northwest of Boston MA.

Totally beautiful, just beautiful. And HostaLes, the French were the ones who believed that perfect beauty was sort of boring, and they are the ones who invented "beauty marks", like small moles etc, imperfections which made beauty that much more exquisite, and unique. (Might have led to caricature as well, like Bette Davis Eyes.) Every perfect plant would be alike. The same. And, my DH tells me that in engineering there is something called "sameness death" --so that if it is all leveled out, all the same, then we have a "flatliner" situation. And I personally don't want to flat line any time soon. So Don's plant has a beauty mark, I betcha.

Your photos are gorgeous! Certainly looks like the tropics - especially LOVE the Amaranthus.